SECTION VI. 578' If a heathen that knows not Christ be ever accepted of God and forgiven, it is through the atonement which Christ has made. If ever he be renewed to repentance and holiness, it is through the influenceof the blessed Spirit. And though some who call them- selves christians may not receive nor profess these truths, yet if ever they are saved it must be by the participation of these blessings, whether they will believe and acknowledge it or no; and they are infinitely more indebted to Christ their Redeemer, and the Spirit their Sanctifier, than Christ and the Spirit are to them. Whosoever is elect or chosen to salvation, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, it is through sancti- fcation of the Spirit unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ; 1 Pet. i. 2. And may God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, have all due acknowledgments andhonours. I will allow to Cavenor that there may be many of the divine mediums whereby our salvation was either contrived, pro- cured, or applied, which may not be clearly revealed unto us, and therefore are not necessary to be acknowledged by us : But those mediums, viz, the sacrifice of Christ, and the operations of the Holy Spirit, which are so carefully and so plainly revealed to us in scripture, that our personal transactions with the great God may be managed through the merit ofthe one, and the influ- ence of the other, these are necessary to be acknowledged and received, wheresoever this revelation comes with sufficient light and evidence. What are the chief reasons, why the names of the Son of God and his blessed Spirit are revealed from heaven to be of standinguse, in the religion of mankind, through all the ages of christianity, if it be not that one may be acknowledg- ed as the Redeemer of his people, and the other as the Sanctifier ; and that there may be á continual dependence on the merit of the one, and the influences of the other, in all our transactions with God ? It is through Jesus, who is our peace-maker by his blood, that we both Jews and Gentiles have our access by one Spirit unto theFather; Eph. ii. 1S. The bloodof the sacrifice has paved out a new and a living way to God, and the powerfnl influences of the Spirit conduct us in that way. Dreadful hazard of missing God, if we renounce the way, when it is so plainlÿ shewn us, and refuse this divine conducter whooffers his assistance ! I must confess for my own part, I would not for a world venture my soul upon the mere mercy of God without any regard to the atonement of Christ, nor trust to be renewed by the powers of nature without seeking the operations of the Spirit of grace, sincethey are revealed in scripture withso much evidence : Yet neither to gain a world would I dareset up for a judge, and pronounce hell and damnation upon any such humble and sincere soul, as Cavenor saith lie is acquainted with ; such a soul who
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